Description

Title: The Gorge

Engine: Unreal Editor for Fortnite

Genre: Capture the Flag

Role:  Level Designer

Team Size: Solo

Development Time: September 2024 - December 2024 (4 Months)

A level 3v3 Capture The Flag level created in Unreal Editor for Fortnite. It was created as an assignment for a level design class with the intent purpose of developing a level from concepting to a first-art pass state. The level I created is called The Gorge; its designed to be a three-lane map with a focus on creating high-intensity combat situations. 

Development

For this map, I wanted to improve on my design for previous ones and create a level that, while a reflection of itself on both sides, still supports an interesting and diverse design. I found a lot of previous multiplayer battles, in which I tended to keep the design simple in order to support fair play. However, here, I instead made an effort to add variation in height, interiors, and defense to help facilitate interesting player interactions, while still keeping a balance fighting ground for players. Some inspirations for the gorge were shooter maps I was familiar with, such as Nuke from Counter-Strike 2 and Eichenwalde from Overwatch. In particular, the level design is inspired by Nuke, while the theming is inspired by Eichenwalde. I tired not to copy these examples but, instead use meaningful inspiration from them in order to improve my own design work.

Map Overview And Art Pass Example

Video Showcase

Most of my design intent is showcased in the video above. Being quite familiar with Unreal Engine for Fortnite, I was able to quickly workshop and then implement many of my ideas for the level quickly. The games 3 v 3 nature led me to designing the level to have a focus on creating scenarios that encourage team play and coordination by making a variety of vantage points and choke holds for players to take advantage of. A balanced selection of weapons is provided in order to keep the match balanced and more down to skill rather then luck. I wanted to design for more of a skill based experience as while I think luck has its place in many games, this map was meant to be a more skill driven environment.